jest right, the grammar
straight as the Ten Commandments, every t crossed and i dotted accordin'
to regulashuns and the Constitushun of the United States. She must be
a school-teacher, and yit a school-teacher couldn't knit sich socks as
them. She's a lady, every inch of her. Religious, too. Belongs to the
Methodist Church. Si's father's a Baptist, and so's my folks, but I
always did think a heap o' the Methodists. I think they have a little
nicer girls than the Baptists. I think I'd like to marry a Methodist
wife."

Then he blushed vividly, all to himself, to think how fast his thoughts
had traveled. He returned to the letter, to cover his confusion.

"Bad Ax, Wis. What a queer name for a place. Never heard of it before.
Wonder where in time it is? I'd like awfully to know. There's the 1st
and 21st Wis. in Rousseau's Division, and the 10th Wis. Battery in
Palmer's Division. I might go over there and ask some o' them. Mebbe
some of 'em are right from there. I'll bet it's a mighty nice place."

He turned to the signature with increased interest.

"Jerusha Ellen Briggs. Why, the name itself is{129} reg'lar poetry.
Jerusha is awful purty. Your Mollies and Sallies and Emmies can't hold
a candle to it. And Annabel--pshaw! Ellen--why that's my mother's name.
Briggs? I knowed some Briggses once aEuro" way-up, awfully nice people.
Seems to me they wuz Presbyterians, though, and I always thought that
Presbyterians wuz stuck-up, but they wuzzent stuck-up a mite. I wonder
if Miss Jerusha Ellen Briggs--she must be a Miss--haint some beau? But
she can't have. If he wuzzent in the army she wouldn't have him; and if
he was in the army she'd be sending the socks to him, instead of to whom
it may concern."

This brilliant bit of logic disposed of a sudden fear which had been
clutching at his heart. It tickled him so much that he jumped up,
slapped his breast, and grinned delightedly and triumphantly at the
whole landscape.

"What's pleasin' you so mightily. Shorty?" asked Si, who had just come
up. "Got a new system for beatin' chuck-a-luck, or bin promoted?"

"No, nothin'! Nothin's happened," said Shorty curtly, as he hastily
shoved the letter into his blouse pocket. "Will you watch them beans
bilin' while I go down to the spring and git some water?"

He picked up the camp-kettle and started. He wanted to be utterly alone,
even from Si, with his new-born thought. He did not go directly to the
spring, but took another way to a